Christmas Highlights

I can hardly believe another Christmas has come and gone. The hustle and bustle of December is over and we're getting ready to swing into another new year. We had a great time at Christmas. Even though we only live a few houses from my parents, we still slept over there on Christmas Eve. That's how we had done it before, so we just kept up the tradition. The four of us had Christmas at our house on Christmas Eve which was nice but I love that Ben and Anna Kate have Nana and Papaw so close and so we stayed again. We stayed at Pop and Mimi's on Christmas night and had fun with Scott's brothers and their wives and kids. It seems like life gets so busy and Ben and Anna Kate LOVE playing with all the boys on the Duncan side. I wish we could all do it a little more often.
Here Anna Kate is on Christmas morning hugging her purple bunny from Santa. She cuddled it for a few minutes before we dug into the rest of the presents. I'm so glad I was able to find one. I was one panicked mommy the week before Christmas when I still hadn't gotten it in the mail!

Okay, so these pictures are backwards...sorry about that. This is actually on Christmas Eve. Before we went to church that evening, we did our birthday celebration for Jesus. Here is Ben reading the Christmas story from Luke. I love it that he can read. He is absolutely the smartest little thing. He was very big for us this year. I can hardly believe he'll be 6 in 10 days!

Here we are as a family. I love, love, love my little family! Scott is such a sweetheart! We actually shopped for one another this year. It's the first time in many that we have done it. He had my engagement ring reset for me. Quite a few years ago I smashed my hand in a window in the car...it was one of those automatic things... I'm a little clumsy and that just proves it! I just needed to see how cold it was and I smashed my ring to pieces. We had it "fixed" but it has never looked the same. So, he had it reset but he had it reset in white gold because I only wear silver and white gold most of the time. He also asked me to marry him again when he gave it to me. It's nice to know that after knowing me as well as he does, he would choose me again. Like I said, he is a sweetheart and I am so blessed to have him. I then got another precious surprise. My mom's original wedding band is white gold and she entrusted it to me to wear with the diamond Scott had reset. I love that I have that representation of marriage...Scott with his sweetness and a part of dad and mom too. I am soooo blessed!!!!!

Here are my kids eyeing the cake. They love cake!!!! Just like their mom! Yes, I let them dive into it even after all the sweets they had from the day! And yes, Jesus' birthday cake says "Deck the Halls" but I couldn't find anything else.

Well, another year starts. Ben and Anna Kate will be starting school again on Monday and I hope that I can do them justice and teach them properly! I hope this year I can do a better job of staying out of the way too. I would like for God to be able to use me...if I could just quit my selfishness half of the time. I think my resolution this year is to get up in the morning and look in the mirror and say my favorite quote to myself everyday! "Just stop it!!!!" --Bob Newhart